


The Angels Grace

by CrossAce215



Category: Sword Art Online
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 11:36:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16680865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrossAce215/pseuds/CrossAce215
Summary: Depressed and guilt wracked, Arthur was offered a new chance at life when he was contacted by a man named Kayaba Akihiko, who asked him to help him develop an engine for the new game he was making, but when the world goes to hell and he is trapped inside SAO with the only two people he truly cares for his world breaks apart. Arthur must must struggle against the demons that rule his past, and chose whether to keep the sense of honor and duty that has guided him for so long, and risk losing everything, or to throw it away and embrace the insanity that rises within him.





	The Angels Grace

**Author's Note:**

> Right well first things first I should probably explain a few things about this story to help everyone understand exactly where I have veered off from canon and gone into my old world. I'm only planning on doing this for the first few chapters so I can help everyone understand some of the features I've changed massively. This will mostly be lore or 'system' wide changes, as any changes to the story will be explained in the story.  
> There will be 30,000 players, not 10,000. This was really just a personal choice at the end of the day, but it will be come in to play with some of the new features that I’ve introduced to the system.  
> Pain can be felt, hunger and thirst can be felt, and sleep deprivation can be felt. Go without eating for two days and your body will kill you. Welcome to New Aincrad.  
> Aincrad will be called New Aincrad. No, there isn’t a reason for this, I just felt like it.  
> Sinon will be a major character in this story and will play basically the same as she did in GGO, except she killed the guy with a knife, hence the SAO part of it.  
> Emotional/Physiological drama will play a major part in this. By which I’m kind of saying, this is going to be dark. Like really dark. You’ll understand within the first few chapters but this is just a heads up, if you find scenes like torture or abuse somewhat unpleasant to deal with, you’re not going to like this, which comes to my next point.  
> Laughing Coffin. All I’m saying is, the fact they are my favorite part of SAO should give you a good guess into how dark I’m gonna make this XD.  
> There will be romance, but it will come at a far higher cost than anything canon wise, and there sure as hell ain’t gonna be a Kirito/Harem (not because I kill everyone, well that to, but probably some other stuff on the side). Also, due to the fact I have a very hard time understanding relationships and the way they work I probably won’t be doing anything much with it, beyond having it as a backstory for Kirito and Asuna. And Sinon. Mostly Sinon tbh, I like her more than either of the other two XD  
> Also, for a final note. Yui. I’m going to have a very hard time introducing her in the way I want, but I’ll see what I can do. But long story short she isn’t going to go Kirito/Asuna as they quite probably won’t be together or even on speaking terms at that point due to reasons. She will still be a major character because, well, Yui. However she will most probably go to either Sinon or the main OC, not entirely sure yet as again I still don’t know which point in the story I should throw her in to.  
> Also, just thought I’d mention this story will start just before the SAO crisis, then skip the opening scene and come back in about a day after the whole introduction thing happens, as it will be easier for me to carry the story on form there.  
> Right, well that should be about it for the main points I wanted to make. I will probably be introducing or pointing out new information at the start of every chapter for a while to help everyone understand what’s going on as easily as possible, so look out for the bold text at the start of every chapter as that will probably help explain some feature or detail related to the next few chapters. These will normally be limited to changes I have made to the Cardinal system or some other major change to the canon story, so nothing about the changing story line but just about how I’ve decided to make the actual system run.

Arthur looked around the room carefully, making sure everything was where he wanted it to be. As usual his medicine was sitting next to his bed, as were a couple of bottles of water should he need something to drink. He knew he probably wouldn’t be going out much over the next few days, so he had gone shopping this morning to buy some food and other supplies. Tomorrow at 1: PM the game of the century would be coming out and he had no intention of missing out on any play time he could get. He had managed to get off work the entire next week so as to be completely undisturbed while he played. Well, maybe not completely undisturbed he though as he heard the doorbell ring. Grinning to himself he slowly walked out of his room and opened the front door, smiling at the person who greeted him.  
“Arthur, there you are, I thought I’d be ringing forever” the little girl at the door said, before she launched herself into him, almost knocking him over despite her relative size, or lack thereof.  
“Hey, little sis, how have you been?” he asked quietly. She grinned back at him, before stepping back and picking up the bag she had dropped in her rush to hug him.  
“I’ve been good, though it’s been lonely without my big brother to keep me company.” She said, a smirk on her face as she stepped past him and waked into the living room. Smiling to himself he closed the door, making sure to lock it, before following her. He found her sitting on the couch, playing with the ca- I mean, the all exalted Empress Snowball the Third of the Divine Catalingian Empire. He mentally slapped himself for almost forgetting her title, before going to sit next to the little sister he hadn’t seen in five years. It suddenly struck him that some people would never be happy with this, but for him it was all he needed. To simply be able to sit with his little sister and play with the Empress was enough to make him feel happy for the first time in what had quite possibly been years. Thinking about the last few years still gave him bad memories and shuddered slightly before blocking those thoughts out of his head. Now wasn’t the time to be sad, he had his sister and his best friend, and they were finally going to be able to play the project he had helped so hard to create.  
“Hey, Nima, you still got that app I gave you on your phone?” I asked, curious. She turned and nodded quickly, before reaching into her bag and taking out her phone. Opening it up I was greeted with a rather adorable Neko as the background, something she grinned at when I noticed, before opening the app I had sent her a couple of months ago. The app was nothing special, I just wanted to see if she had kept it.  
“So, what do you wanna do tonight?” she asked, already looking around for something to do. I grinned before walking over to the table where I had my laptop set up and called her over. Opening it up, I searched through the folders on my laptop, trying to pretend I didn’t notice her snickers when I went into the wrong directory and suddenly found a rather sizable collection of Hentai folders.  
“What’s wrong Onii-chan? I wanna see what that is” she said, putting on an innocent voice which was slightly marred by her smirk and the giggle she couldn’t hold in at the end.  
“You know, considering your 13, I’m not sure whether to be happy or mortified you already know exactly what that is, after all I think you have more on your phone than I do in total” I muttered, before grinning back at her as her expression turned from her usual smug grin to a look of terror.  
“I…uh…I, ah shut up” she muttered, looking away for a second before looking back, that smug look I loved so much back on her face. “Doesn’t mean I don’t wanna see” she said.  
“Heh, fine, I’ll show you later. For now, let’s see if I can find what I’m looking for” I said, going back to looking through the files until I found the one I was looking for.  
“Alright, here you are, these are the introduction videos for SAO, they’ll help with some of the details tomorrow. I’m going to put these up tomorrow night after the launch, so you may as well watch em now, call it admins privileges” I said, smiling at the idea that managing the Beta tests for the game was any kind of privilege.  
As I went to go and make dinner I found myself thinking back over the last few years. It had been five years since I had seen my little sister, five years since my life had gone to hell when…well, needless to say things had gone wrong. It had only been in the last few years that I had managed to recover by putting so much time and energy into helping develop SAO. I would never say that I had been crucial, after all what could a 17 year old with only basic training do that a well trained professional couldn’t? Either way I had been approached by Kayaba himself. He had asked if I could help him stress test a system he called [CARDINAL] and help manage the Bets tests of the game, both of which I had done happily. I had even managed to suggest a few changes, including a survival system I was extremely proud of. Unknown to anyone outside of the development team the final release of SAO would include a system to measure hunger, thirst and sleep deprivation. If you ignored your bodily needs or pushed yourself to hard your body would begin shutting down and eventually kill itself. Not a very nice system to be sure, but it would add a bit of flavour to the otherwise normal MMORPG. Of course, that wasn’t to say that SAO was a clone of any other RPG’s. It was a game unto itself and nothing would ever change that, but I felt that the VR and [CARDINAL] systems working together had a chance to make something great. Well, if he managed to pull it off anyway. I trusted Kayaba more than almost anyone else in the world, he had dragged me up from the depths of depression and given my life new meaning as I helped to develop [CARDINAL]. Pushing the thoughts aside I finished cooking the Lasagne and called out for Niam to come and eat.  
“Here you go, don’t eat it too quickly, it’s hot” I said, my warning falling on deaf ears as she immediately burned her tongue on the food. I sighed, shaking my head, before eating my own meal and sending Nima of to go get ready for bed.  
“Come on, we have a long day tomorrow and I want you refreshed and ready to go” I said, pushing her along when she tried to complain. Smirking at how little she had changed in all this time I went back to my laptop, opening it up and navigating to my emails. Looking through my packed inbox I found the email I was looking for and opened it.  
‘Hey Arthur. Yes, don’t worry, I’ll be on at 1 o’clock exactly. I can’t wait to meet your sister. Also, you will be playing right, not just managing?’  
Grinning at the message I gave a quick reply before closing the computer and going to clean my teeth. A few minutes later I finally managed to get to bed, yawning and closing my eyes, only to open them and smile when I felt a light touch on my shoulder.  
“Hey, Arthur, you think we’re gonna have fun tomorrow?” Niam asked, looking at me with a slightly hesitant expression.  
“Of course, I helped build the game didn’t I? Don’t worry we will have fun together like we used to, I promise” I said, before ruffling her hair and giving her a light hug.  
How was I supposed to know about that last-minute patch Kayaba put in? There was no way I could be to blame for something I never knew about, surely? That was the thinking I used to try and convince myself I had nothing to do with the tragedy that would soon follow. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t, the only thing that mattered to me was that I had helped make the system that would put thousands of people through hell itself in the years to come.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, it's a bit short I know, but I needed to get a chapter out to explain the set up before I could actually get into the Aincrad part of the story. I'm hoping that from now on ill be able to do maybe four or five thousand words minimum, but I cant be entirely certain as sometimes I may not have enough time if I want to bring in a new chapter every week. Also, before anyone starts getting any funny ideas, no. There will be absolutely no incest of any kind in this story, the hentai stuff was just two really close siblings messing around. Either way, here we are and hope everyone has fun reading. May as well say, if anyone wants to leave a review that'd be great, but I really dont think anyone will read this let alone consider it worth commenting on XD. Either way, if you do chose to comment, tell me what you think I could do better on and point out any mistakes if you see em.  
> May the blessings of the Ascended guide you, good luck.


End file.
